Strength
by Iceinherheart
Summary: Sometimes sorrow doesn't have to be personal for it to effect people.


Okay so I'm rather scared about this. 'First-Story-Syndrome' I'm calling it!  
I hope it's not as bad as I think.  
X

* * *

It takes Nyota an embarrassingly long time to realise. She'd put it down to Post-traumatic stress but then she made the mistake of looking over across the room, seen the hundreds of crying faces (and the one who wasn't) and physically shock that thought away. She had nothing to be upset about.  
Not really.

She first realises that last day of the ordered 10 day holiday the crew had been given by Captain – No, _Admiral_ Pike. She hated it. She'd finally gotten what she wanted; she'd served on the _Enterprise_ and been requested by its new Captain, She'd dropped the title Cadet and adopted the new one of Lieutenant. All she wanted was to get away and back on her ship.

"Nyo!"

Obviously that wasn't going to happen.

Gaila stood behind her, her red hair burnt inches shorter than the last time Nyota had seen her one side, giving her head a lop-sided look that Gaila _somehow_ managed to pull off.

"Gal?" She crept closer to her green friend, trying to remember back the day to when they'd been split in to ships. She couldn't remember where Gaila had been placed. She assumed that made her a bad friend. "You're alive?"

"I'm alive?!" The Orion yelled pouncing on her, wrapping Nyota in a tearful hug. "What about you?!"

"I'm fine. The _Enterprise_ was perfectly safe." She faltered, stepping back. "Okay, moderately safe."

"The _Enterprise_?!" Gaila squeaked "What are you talking about?"

"Me? What are you talking about?"

Gaila's next two words where whispered, scared and deadly. And suddenly, nothing was safe as the ground gave way under Nyota's feet and the tree behind her wouldn't hold her up.  
As her world span, she looked up at the hotel in front of her, six floors up and fourteen windows from the left and Nyota could have sworn to the presents of a silhouette at the window, hands behind the back and back straight.

Yes, there was no denying that he was watching her.

* * *

Nyota didn't mean to avoid him the next day; it just seemed to happen that way. She'd had things to do, like locate and memorise the locations of both their newly designated quarters. Hers was three floors down and half the ship to the left from his. Unhelpfully.

Someone, she didn't knew who, had moved her stuff for her. Her cloths lined the wardrobe, her thing set out in strategic places through out the room just as she would have placed them herself. The smell in the room was a synthetic version of her mother's house back in Africa. It smelt perfect. Eight months ago it would have been like coming home. Now it was wrong.

Now it made her sick to her stomach.

So it was rather ironic when she found herself in the offers mess. The smell of replicated food went straight to her stomach and did nothing to ease the sickening feeling that had followed her through the ship.

Lent against the bar with a glass of who knows what in her hand and her pounding head against her other hand, it was almost exactly like three years ago when Jim Kirk appeared by her side.

"Well, if it isn't the lovely Miss. Uhura." He muttered in her ear softly, with that 'charming' voice that made ninety-eight percent of his discards take him back. Many of them thought there was something wrong with her for resisting.

"Get lost." She muttered.

"Why are you so cruel?"

Bones appeared at her other side suddenly, ever the worried doctor, with a face of concern. He pressed a cool hand to her face, tipped her chin up to check her eyes and stole her drink. She didn't resist.

"What's wrong gorgeous?" He asked softly, pressing her drink into Kirk's hand "Drink that, Jim, then go and get her something stronger." He ordered, then flashed her a grin "Doctor's orders."

With Kirk gone, her pulled her upright and turned her to face him. "Talk."

"I shouldn't be here." She whispered, looking away "On the _Enterprise_, I mean."

"So where should you be?" He asked gently as Jim appeared over his shoulder and pressed a small glass of dark liquid into her hand. It tasted foul.

She told them both the whole story, with both of them sitting on either side of her, sipping at her drink. Jim sat with his hand on her back, gently resting between her shoulder blades while Bones kept his hands to himself, only reaching over to slap Kirk on the arm if he dared put the boundaries. She finished with tears streaming down her checks and a shaking hand.

"Oh, you poor thing." McCoy sniffled, and she threw herself into his arms. He brought a hand up to rub across her back hesitantly in a kind of awkward comfort, but it was Kirk, good old reliable Jim Kirk, that spoke her own thoughts:

"Oh, Crap."

* * *

She was hesitant to press the button and she knew she was still crying, still partially intoxicated, but she'd had enough. Less than twenty-four hours since they spoken, less since she'd seen him and she had caved.

Damnit. She was useless.

The door in front of her opened quickly, so quick it blurred in her vision and she looked up at him.

"Nyota?"

Her knees gave out again and his strong arms wrapped around her waist tightly to steady her. Knowing that it was useless, he tucked an arm under her week knees and lifted her up off the ground. She pressed her face into his neck as he walked through his own quarters and led her softly on the bed. She brought a hand up to run her fingers across the point of his ear.

"What is troubling you, _Ashayam_?" It was soft, spoken in her own rounded ear in comfort. It worked far better than Gaila, Kirk or Bones' efforts combined.

"_The Farragut_."

She felt him stiffen under her hands, only minutely, like he did when a topic that cause him distress inside was brought up and his hands drew her closer. She had no doubt that he'd already worked it out. He knew. "I should be dead."

"I know." She pushed at his chest. His eyes where wide showing the human emotion his Vulcan face hid so well. He was in pain. Of course he was; he'd just lost his planet, his mother, Amanda Grayson who she had adored and who adored her in return. He'd lost a part of his father to go with the part of his father he'd never found.

She'd escaped death and broken down. Spock had faced the death of the people (person) who had loved him and she knew he'd never shed a tear about it.

She pushed at him again. Physical contact strengthened the bond between them and she didn't trust her mind not to offend him somehow. She'd never managed to do it before but knowing her luck, there was a first time for everything.

"Nyota?" he relented to the push of her hands, moving away without resistance of any kind. As always, putting her first.

"I need a minute." she told him, wiggling away from him, towards the middle of his bed and pressing her face against the pillow. She breathed deeply, absorbing the comforting smell of his home planet to centre herself. It must have been hell for him.

"Nyota." he said again, pressing two fingers to her shoulder. She moved away from him. "Please do not forget: you are human." he trailed a finger across the top of the ear he could see, as if in proof. "Your emotions are what make you yourself, do not hide them. You are not Vulcan. Nor do I wish you to be. Do not fear sadness."

She looked up at him through one eye doubtfully. She buried her head in the pillow again.

"What troubles you, Nyota? Why does this trouble you so much?"

"I don't know!" She huffed, pushing herself onto her arms and rolling herself onto her back. "That's the problem. I have nothing to be upset about."

"Explain."

So she did. She told him about the compassion she received from Gaila, Kirk and Bones. About how her troubles where small compared to his. How she'd lost no-one and still crumbled to dust. He, of course, listened to every word, felt every pain.

When her breath came in gasps, he scooped her up again and pressed their temples together, wiping away the tears.

She had no reason to cry. But he did, and he never would. Their bond which transferred the emotions he's hid into her emotional human brain. She had nothing to cry about, not personally. But when they where mentally linked, when they where one person, she had the world to cry about. His world.

He lay with her until she slept, unwilling to leave. It wasn't logical in anyway, shape or form, but she left no room for logic.  
And he wouldn't change that for anything.


End file.
